


The Witching Hour

by aactionjohnny



Category: The Venture Bros
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-09 21:14:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16457342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aactionjohnny/pseuds/aactionjohnny
Summary: Set during the beginning of season five (just before “what color is your cleansuit?”) Pete and Billy are staying in Rusty’s guest room. Things get spooky.





	The Witching Hour

**Author's Note:**

> This is a commission for a really sweet person. Happy Halloween!

It’s so teenage, sequestered in a basement. Pete feels like he should be playing truth-or-dare.  _ Truth: why doesn’t Rust let us sleep in separate beds? Dare: tell Rust you know what he’s up to _ . He’s on his back, arms folded behind his head, fingers worrying the soft fabric of his nightcap. He crosses his ankles at the hem of his silky pants. A pale teal, as is odd for him. He’s branching out.

“Can’t sleep for shit down here, pally…” he laments, stifling a yawn that might betray his statement. 

Billy’s sitting up, reading by the bedside lamp. A medical journal, because he never stops. 

“You haven’t even _ tried _ ,” Billy says, closing the magazine and tossing it onto the bedside table.

“Nah, I just...I can tell I won’t be able to. I mean look at that…” He stretches out an arm and indicates the wide window that keeps them from the gallons upon gallons of water from the pool. “One crack and it’s gonna be like  _ The Shining _ in here, but like...ya know...with water instead of blood…”

“Yeah I got it, White.” Despite his chiding, Billy’s brows do stitch together in some semblance of worry, looking at the old glass. “Forget that, what about  _ those? _ ” he asks, pointing with one metal finger at the collection of dolls on the mantle. Grotesque, they bask in the shadow of the ceiling, the old 1970s paint and decor. Pete squints, turning to sit up and get a better look.

“The fuck are those?” he asks, leaning forward, pushing himself up to stand with a small groan. They’re not getting any younger, are they…

“You seriously don’t know?” Billy asks, shuffling to the edge of the bed and hopping down. “They’re from one of the most infamous episodes of the Rusty Venture show!”

“Oh, well  _ excuse  _ me…” Pete says, rolling his eyes, reaching up to grab one of the dolls from the display.

“No, White, don’t touch them!” Billy protests, catching up with him, pulling on the hem of his silky shirt. “They’re cursed.”

“Oh, Billy, come _ on _ . Aren’t you a scientist?” Before Billy can stop him, he grabs one of the dolls and pulls it down to look at it. He places his free hand on Billy’s massive forehead to keep him at bay as he swipes after the memorabilia. “ _ Cursed. _ They’re just a little creepy, that’s all.”

He holds the doll in his pale, skinny fingers, furrowing his brow to inspect it. Its skin is made from old, ghastly gray leather. Hair stringy and ancient, as if he’ll touch it and it will disintegrate. 

“So what happened? In the episode?” It seems like the one story he hasn’t heard Billy tell, so he’ll indulge him. God forbid he actually admit he’s curious…

“It only aired once, because it scared so many children. The network wiped it from syndication after that.”

“Jesus…”

“Yeah.”

With a snort and a smirk, Pete shoves the doll in Billy’s face.

“Just take it, Billy. It’s not gonna kill ya.”

Billy sighs, practically a growl, and takes the doll in hand. Pete swears he can see him trembling.

“Rusty gets captured by this freaky old witch, deep in a forest that’s impossible to navigate. Think  _ Blair Witch Project _ .”

“Uh-huh…” As Billy talks, walking with the doll to sit on the edge of their shared bed, Pete follows. He fights the smile that tugs at him; he despises how endeared he’s become, how fond, when Billy gets that glossy look in his eye. 

“She gives him these dolls to play with. And Rusty, I dunno, so  _ desperate _ for parental attention, he has a lot of fun with them. The witch tells him she’ll make him one of her own children if he’s good, so she sends him to bed and he obeys. Now this is where it gets even worse.”

“Worse than the nightmare of Rust’s  _ actual  _ life?” Pete asks, leaning his elbows on his knees.

“Much.” Billy spares one more haunted glance for the doll, and then turns to face Pete as they sit on the bed. He holds the doll up to Pete’s eyes and continues. “In the middle of the night, having no idea that Team Venture is out looking for him, he sneaks out of bed to play with the dolls again, and they’re all packed away in a toy chest. But when he opens it, all he hears is the screaming of other children.”

“Good god--”

“Yeah. Then he sees a little doll, half-made, sitting on the countertop. Looks just like him.”

There’s a stillness that falls over them, their gazes wide and frightened. It’s...dark. The lights in the pool have shut off on their timer, the bulb in the bedside lamp needs so desperately to be changed. When it flickers Pete yelps, grabbing the doll out of Billy’s hand and tossing it across the room. As if on instinct, they huddle close, curled toward one another with their hands clasped.

“So there’s supposed to be the souls of kids on those d...dolls?” Pete asks.  _ For fuck’s sake _ , he thinks. He’s in his  _ forties _ . But god damn if they aren’t the creepiest things he’s ever seen.

“Dr. Venture Senior told Rusty it was just his imagination…”

“And the witch?”

“Nobody knows what happened to her.”

The bedside light flickers anew, once, twice, and then fades into darkness entirely.

“You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me,” Pete says, freeing one arm from their terrorized cocoon to try and smack the light back on. “Wh-what do we do?”

“We could just….go to sleep…” Billy gulps. Pete begins to nod in reluctant agreement, until they hear an impossible, screaming wind pass over the pool above, rippling even the deepest waters that lay just outside their room. “Or! We could go find another lightbulb!”

“Yeah, and...and stay up all night or until the dolls come and kill us…”

After a few moments of shuffling, of being thankful for the lack of light to shed on how they blush from being cuddled so close, they stand. Their eyes have adjusted some, but still they feel a great unease. There’s a black shadow in the corner of the room that hides the discarded doll.

“There’s a closet down the hall, Billy. I think we’ll find them in there.” Without a thought, he reaches out one skinny arm, hand wide for Billy to take. He softens when he feels the chill of mechanical fingers climbing his palm. An anchor in the foolish fright. 

“Where’s the lightswitch?” Billy whispers. Pete makes a vague  _ I dunno  _ noise, groping along the wall to try and find it. But before he can feel anything, the light turns on around them and they startle. 

“Fuckin’...when did he install motion-sensing lights?” Pete asks, breathless, knowing yet ignoring how he tightens his grip on Billy’s hand.

“And yet he can’t pay us for all the work we do…”

“Y’ever wish that lady  _ had _ trapped his soul in a doll?”

“More than I care to admit.”

They find the closet, and Pete opens it with his free hand, wincing at how the door creaks. There’s a clearly marked box on the top shelf that contains the lightbulbs.

“Uh...pally?” Pete tugs his arm a little bit, trying to free his hand.

“Oh-- sorry…” Billy collects his own hands upon his chest, sheepish.

Pete brings the box down, rifles through it.

“God, he hasn’t even switched to  _ halogen _ yet. What are these, sixty watt?” He pulls one of the off-white bulbs out and appraises it, a defeated look in his eyes. It’ll have to do. Needlessly, though their fear has somewhat subsided, they still clasp hands on their way back to the room. When the hall light shuts off automatically they jump just a little. This is _ insane. _ They’ve been through worse. Kidnapped, threatened, indebted to scary vampire guys. But there’s something just so unbearable about flickering lights and possessed figurines. It’s like a B-movie. They’re the final girls, saved by their bravery and chastity. All those dry spells are finally paying off, because they’ll live through the night.

“A’right...I’ll change the bulb, you...I dunno. Be the lookout,” Pete says, carefully shutting the door to the basement room behind them.

“The lookout for  _ what? _ ”

“Freddy fuckin’ Krueger…” he says, jesting to stave off his worry. They let go of one another yet again, and Pete turns to the lamp to fix it. He can feel Billy behind him, back-to-back, knees to his chest.

__ _ How many albinos does it take to change a lightbulb?  _ He can’t help the stupid place his mind tends to go. It helps him smile through the shivering, just knowing those creepy dolls are there, staring. _ Waiting _ .

“There,” he says with a sigh, relieved that the lamp illuminates the room once again. Billy, too, eases, leaning back onto Pete like a sturdy wall. 

“ _ God _ ,” Billy rasps, craning his neck back. It sends a prickle down Pete’s spine, feeling that heavy head resting between his shoulder blades. “See why they only aired that episode once?”

“Yeah, it sounds like  _ The Dark Crystal _ or some shit…”

Billy snorts.

“ _ Rusty Venture, I’m going to steal your essence! _ ”

Pete chuckles, tilting his head back in turn, feeling the pillow of BIlly’s hair.

“That doll woulda been  _ real  _ fun to play with for the next kid...”

“Yeah, three points of articulation and thirteen snide, arrogant phrases!”

“Pull the string on his back and he’ll call you an idiot!”

They drown out their nerves with laughter, turning to face one another and pools their still-shaky hands in their laps. That silence falls again, lighter, less filled with howling wind and that unmistakable feeling of doom. They grin at one another, calmed, another of their too-frequent long stares. Just blinking slow at each other, biting their lips like two kids in a movie. The kind you won’t admit you like, that you’d never tell anyone made you cry.

“So uh...we’re gonna throw a sheet over those dolls, right?” Pete asks, breaking his eyes away, eager not to acknowledge the quiet softness they share.

“Oh, definitely,” Billy says, grabbing for one blanket and one pillow. He covers the one discarded doll with the pillow and then stares up at the mantle, blanket in tow. “Uh...White?”

Smiling fondly, Pete pads over in his slippers to the mantle and takes the blanket, tosses it over the array of dolls until they’re sufficiently out of sight. He lets his thin arms fall to his sides and his shoulders slope. The terror is over. For now.

“Ya wanna try and sleep?” he asks, a hand resting on Billy’s shoulder as they walk back to the too-small bed. 

“ _ Try _ being the operative word…” Billy checks his watch. It’s late. Nearly two in the morning. “There’s no point. Hank’s gonna wake up in a few hours with all that ADHD energy and ask us to watch cartoons.”

“Ugh…” Pete groans, if with a note of affection, and hangs his head. A smile sneaks upon his lips, and he turns his face to Billy. “Then tell me more stories. Less creepy ones this time.”

“Really?” He beams. “Even if you’re heard them?”

“Yeah, pally...even if I’ve heard ‘em.” He’s eased by how much slower his heart beats now that they feel safe, charmed by their closeness and their camaraderie. He nods his head toward the wall, bidding Billy to follow him so they can lean against it. Once they’re situated, he tosses a lanky arm over Billy’s shoulders. Again they curl toward one another, accepting bits and pieces of their fate. That they’ll be up all night. That they’re always going to end up this way in the wee hours of the morning. It just keeps happening. The little intimacies they’re afraid of.

But there’s nothing quite as scary as what they’ve been through tonight, so they give up. They let themselves act a little bit like lovers, and they never say it out loud.

**Author's Note:**

> This was so much fun. Comments are always appreciated!


End file.
